"The common rubric was an overall success and will be applied to
other institutional level assessments in the future." Andrea
Niosi, SLO Committee member & Librarian

Impact of GEO C Assessment

The assessment of General Education (GE) Area C outcomes was the
first institutional-level assessment to take place since the College
made a commitment to the outcomes and assessment model for course and
program evaluation and improvement. The implications of the findings
go beyond the GE Area C Natural Sciences courses.

The assessment process followed by the GE Area C workgroup served as
a model for future institutional GEO and ILO assessments. The process
involved developing a common rubric that the many disciplines involved
in the institutional-level assessment could adapt to the course
level. The rubric has three levels of achievement: proficiency;
developing; and no evidence. Each participating instructor developed
criteria for how students meet each level of achievement for their
course assessment(s). Instructors at the course level conducted SLO
assessments then converted their findings to the common rubric. The
common rubric was an overall success and will be applied to other
institutional level assessments in the future. The GE outcome
assessment of Area C resulted in the following overall results: 64.6%
proficiency, 25.6% developing and 10.8% showing no
evidence. Assessment results, analysis and dialogue led to outcome revision.

Additionally, the workgroup reviewed the pass and withdrawal rates
for GE Area C classes. The overall pass rate for GE Area C students is
60.8% and the overall withdrawal percentage is 17.4. Not surprisingly,
the assessment data and the pass/withdraw rates were similar and
provided validity to the assessment practices being employed at CCSF.

The workgroup decided to investigate why the proficiency and pass
rates were low. They reviewed Math and English placement tests and
correlated them with the pass rate for GE Area C. The number of
students passing a class (a grade of C or higher) correlated with
higher level Math and English levels. For example, "students
enrolled or placed into lower level math (which correlates to
pre-algebra and earlier) had only a 24.8% pass rate, compared to a 48%
pass rate for upper level (algebra 1 or 2 or geometry), and a 68.7%
pass rate for collegiate level (beyond algebra 2). Lower math
placement also shows a strong correlation with higher
withdrawals. The workgroup findings suggested that English and Math
placement tests are an important indicator of student success and more
emphasis and dialogue between teachers, counselors and students needs
to take place so that students have the right prerequisites to achieve
at proficiency levels.

At the end of the report the committee provided additional
recommendations for the College community, natural science
departments, and course instructors with the ultimate goal of
increasing student proficiency levels.

Next steps

At the Jan 9th FLEX day program entitled College-Wide
Dialogue Continued, faculty, department chairs, and counselors
discussed how to move these recommendations forward. The workgroup
and SLO coordinators are asking more members of the college community
to read the full report, identify decision makers that may
implement the recommendations, and talk with decision makers and
colleagues about the path forward.